Tuesday, July 13, 2004

Putting a stop to the Gmail "gold" rush

This blog has been following efforts to make a quick buck by selling off beta Gmail accounts. From the initial boom days of $30 listings on Ebay, through to the sorry $1-3 sales of recent times, this blog has resolutely held onto its Gmail account. And now the chance of a quick buck (literally, a buck) is gone with Google attempting to put a stop to the practice by putting a ban on users selling email address.

It has changed the terms of the membership policy to put the clamps on selling, trading or transferring the free email accounts "for any unauthorised commercial purpose", although selling Gmail invitations are still fair game for now.

Given what's happened with the bid price, the chances are that market forces will soon put an end to it in any case with dwindling prices, competitor offerings and the actual launch of the full service.

Nice as it may be for kudos to have billgates@gmail.com, I can't see people forking out as they might for their precious brand-name domains.